In a variety of sports, traction on a playing field is improved by wearing a cleated shoe. Many spiked shoes, such as those metal and plastic spikes made for golf shoes, provide only surface traction and do not penetrate deeply into turf surfaces for traction, so as not to cause damage to delicate golf courses and greens. A golf shoe of this type may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,906,059 to Singer et al. For running sports and sports played in a variety of weather conditions, such as football, rugby and soccer, where surface traction alone will not provide adequate traction, cleated shoes have been developed to penetrate more deeply than the surface traction provided by golf shoes. Slippery turf conditions may be caused by the weather, the type of turf, and the particular activity being performed on the turf surface. For each of these slippery conditions, traction is enhanced when cleats can penetrate deeply and quickly into a turf surface.
To solve this problem, many cleats have been created in a conical shape, with a smaller surface area at a tip so that the smaller surface area can penetrate the surface more easily. However, as the cleat pushes down into a grass or synthetic turf, the turf is compacted underneath the cleat or is forced away from the sloped sides of the cleat. As the dirt compacts, resistance to the penetration of the cleat is created thus inhibiting the cleat from quickly and deeply penetrating the turf.